The Shadow of Saganami

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Jay Snyder

Length: 30 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

The Star Kingdom has a new generation of officers! And this elite group hand-picked and trained by Honor Harrington herself is going to be needed immediately, as their first assignment turns out to be more dangerous than anyone expected.

What was supposed to be a quiet outpost, far from the blazing conflict between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven has actually been targeted by an unholy alliance between the slaveholders of Manpower, the rival star kingdoms of Mesa and Monica, and the bureaucrats of the Solarian League.

The alliance stands to benefit if the Havenites defeat Manticore, and are preparing for a surprise attack from the rear to divide Manticore's forces, which are already strained nearly to their limits. With their captain, the young Manticoran officers will risk their careers, if not their lives, on an unauthorized mission to expose and counter the threat to their Star Kingdom. Follow their journey as they show what they're made of.

New York Times best-selling author David Weber begins a new series that will be a must-buy for the hundreds of thousands of Honor Harrington fans.

©2005 David Weber (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Not his best work

Love the Honor series, but this one seemed plodding and the voice actor when doing female voices was atrocious. Had to listen at 3x speed just to get through it and almost quit more times than I can count.

Great , with a variety of personalities.

This is one Weber's most complete books of honor and courage in the face of insurmountable odds. I thought this could be one of those long winded books as I was very much pleased, instead it had a strong depth in its plot with a complex but understandable twisted story. If you like Sci Fi War novels this is a 5 star read.

Great story

I agree with others that have said that this is one of the best Honorverse stories not in the main line. Characters were well developed and the Talbot system is an interesting new place to experience. The narrator definitely detracted from my enjoyment. The voices were not distinctive, many sounded the same. They were also not consistently portrayed. It was not the same quality of performance I have enjoyed in most other Honor Harrington books.

Great book horrible performance

How anyone could think the vocal performance on this book was good enough to publish its beyond me. It's a fantastic book but the "female* vocalizations made chalkboards and fingernails into fond childhood memories.

Babies Don't Fly Battle Ships

My God do I hate ensemble casts. Just read the words can't you? The primary hard-core females both sound like 3 year old girls with attitude problems. It is so hard to listen to the story when the protagonist's voice makes you cringe whenever you hear her talk. What were they thinking? And I'm only on chapter 3. I'm still listening to it and maybe I'll come back and update this...if I can get over the ridiculous baby voices from the women.

Narrator too grating

Would you try another book from David Weber and/or Jay Snyder?

Yes/No I love listening to David Webber's books, but not so much Jay Snyder.

What did you like best about this story?

Takes place in the Honor Harrington story time line.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator shouldn't have tried to do female voices, even his the male voices irritated me.

Any additional comments?

You need to listen to a sample this book before you buy. Jay Snyder has that deep announcer voice. I keep thinking he's trying to sell me a used car. I kept waiting for him to say "In a world filled with bla bla bla......". He over annunciates and over acts the roles. I thought I could trudge through it until he started to do female voices. Ugh. I rather hear nails on a chalkboard. He doesn't have the range to try to do different voices. If he stuck to his own voice and didn't try to differentiate the characters I might have gotten over it. As it is, I tried my best to stick with the story hoping I could overcome the narrator. I got through an hour, but I just couldn't do anymore. It's a shame because it sounded as if it was a good story and would compliment the Harrington series. There were other audio books were the narrator would get on my nerves, usually you get used to it, especially if the storyline is good enough. This is the first book that I had to actually stop listening to because of the narrator. I just couldn't pay attention to the storyline with his voice grating me.

Horrible narrator

David Weber has many female characters in his books, but Jay Snyder makes them all sound like Monty Python characters.

Narration Ruins Otherwise Delightful Tale

I have found the narration quality of the other books in the Honor and Honorverse series to be delightful, and I am both grateful for and impressed by the care and consistency that usually goes into Weber's audiobooks, particularly given how long the series has been running. However, as many other reviewers have commented, the narration style and execution of this particular book falls far below that usual high standard. Ultimately, this resulted in a performance which was actually too distracting to read, despite the enchanting characters and stirring return to front-lines naval combat that this spinoff series represents.

I will be returning this Audible book and reading this entry into the Honorverse saga on Kindle instead, though I cannot wait to jump back into the series with Allyson Johnson's narration of At All Costs.

good story typical for Weber

I cringe every time the narrator try to do a female's voice though. 2 words

This narrator is not awesome

What made the experience of listening to The Shadow of Saganami the most enjoyable?

The book itself seems action packed.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jay Snyder’s performances?

.... Not if I had a choice. His female voice is always yelling. His male voices are always overly husky and over dramatic.
"Took another longer sip of beerhhhh."
"Send them packinghhhhh"
"Is exactly what I came looking forrrrrhhhh"
Its ruining my enjoyment of this book and series.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no